f hand. I
called upon all my forces to stop this and I felt the sobering  effect of my
mental brakes. But as this happened, my clarity  of mind began to diffuse. I
silently fought  - trying to be both less  sober and less nervous. Don  Juan
did not make a sound and left me alone.
     By the time I had reestablished  my balance,  it  was almost  dawn. Don
Juan stood, stretched his arms above his head and tensed his muscles, making
his joints crack.  He  helped  me up and commented that  I had spent  a most
enlightening  night: I had experienced what the spirit was and had been able
to summon hidden strength to  accomplish something,  which  on  the  surface
amounted to calming  my nervousness, but at a deeper level it  had  actually
been  a  very  successful, volitional  movement of my  assemblage  point. He
signaled then that it was time to start on our way back.

     THE SOMERSAULT OF THOUGHT

     We  walked into his  house  around seven in  the  morning, in time  for
breakfast. I was famished but not tired. We had  left the cave to climb down
to the valley at dawn. Don Juan, instead of following the most direct route,
made a long detour that took us along the river. He explained that we had to
collect our wits before we got home.
     I answered it  was very kind of him to  say "our wits" when  I  was the
only one whose wits were disordered.  But he replied that he was  acting not
out  of kindness but  out of  warrior's training. A warrior, he said, was on
permanent  guard  against the roughness of human  behavior.  A  warrior  was
magical  and ruthless, a  maverick  with the most refined taste and manners,
whose wordly task was to sharpen, yet disguise, his cutting edges so that no
one would be able to suspect his ruthlessness.
     After breakfast I thought it  would be wise to get some sleep, but  don
Juan contended  I had  no time to waste. He said  that all too soon I  would
lose the  little clarity I still had, and if I went to sleep I would lose it
all.
     "It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there is hardly any way to
talk  about intent" he said quickly  as he scrutinized me from head to  toe.
"But  making this  statement  doesn't  mean  anything. It is  the reason why
sorcerers rely  instead  on  the  sorcery  stories.  And  their hope is that
someday the abstract cores of the stories will make sense to the listener."
     I understood what he was saying, but I still could not conceive what an
abstract  core  was or what it was supposed to mean to me. I tried to  think
about it. Thoughts barraged me. Images passed rapidly through my mind giving
me no time to  think about them. I  could not  slow them down enough even to
recognize them. Finally  anger overpowered  me and I slammed my fist on  the
table.
     Don Juan shook from head to toe, choking with laughter.
     "Do what  you did  last  night,"  he urged  me, winking. "Slow yourself
down."
     My frustration made me very  aggressive.  I  immediately put forth some
senseless arguments; then I became aware of  my error and  apologized for my
lack of restraint.
     "Don't  apologize," he said. "I should tell you  that the understanding
you're after is impossible  at this time. The abstract  cores of the sorcery
stories will say nothing to you now. Later - years later, I mean  - they may
make perfect sense to you."
     I begged don Juan not to leave me in the dark, to discuss  the abstract
cores.  It was not at all clear  to  me what he wanted me to do with them. I
assured him that  my present  state  of heightened  awareness could be  very
helpful to me in allowing  me  to  understand his discussion. I urged him to
hurry, for I could not guarantee how long this  state would last. I told him
that  soon I would return to my normal state and would become a bigger idiot
than I was at that moment. I said it half in jest. His laughter told me that
he had taken it  as such, but I  was deeply  affected  by  my  own  words. A
tremendous sense of melancholy overtook me.
     Don  Juan gently took my arm, pulled me to a comfortable armchair, then
sat down facing me. He  gazed fixedly into my eyes, and  for a moment I  was
incapable of breaking the force of his stare.
     "Sorcerers constantly stalk themselves," he said in a reassuring voice,
as if trying to calm me with the sound of his voice.
     I wanted to say that my nervousness had passed and that it had probably
been caused by my lack of sleep, but he did not allow me to say anything.
     He assured me  that he  had already taught me everything  there was  to
know about stalking, but I had not yet retrieved my knowledge from the depth
of  heightened awareness,  where I had  it  stored.  I told  him I  had  the
annoying sensation  of being  bottled up. I felt  there was something locked
inside me, something that made me slam doors and kick tables, something that
frustrated me and made me irascible.
     "That  sensation  of  being  bottled up is  experienced  by every human
being," he said.  "It is a reminder of  our existing connection with intent.
For sorcerers  this sensation is even  more  acute,  precisely because their
goal is to sensitize their  connecting  link until they can make it function
at will.
     "When  the  pressure of their connecting link  is too great,  sorcerers
relieve it by stalking themselves."
     "I still  don't think I understand  what you  mean by stalking" I said.
"But at a certain level I think I know exactly what you mean."
     "I'll try to help you  clarify what you know, then," he said. "Stalking
is a procedure, a very simple one. Stalking is special behavior that follows
certain principles. It is secretive, furtive, deceptive behavior designed to
deliver  a jolt. And,  when you stalk yourself you jolt yourself, using your
own behavior in a ruthless, cunning way."
     He explained that when  a sorcerer's  awareness became bogged down with
the weight of his perceptual  input, which was what was happening to me, the
best, or even perhaps the only,  remedy  was  to  use  the idea  of death to
deliver that stalking jolt.
     "The idea of death therefore is of monumental importance in the life of
a sorcerer," don Juan continued. "I have shown you innumerable things  about
death to convince you that  the  knowledge of  our impending and unavoidable
end is what  gives us sobriety. Our most  costly  mistake as average  men is
indulging in a  sense  of immortality. It is as though we believe that if we
don't think about death we can protect ourselves from it."
     "You must agree, don Juan, not thinking  about death certainly protects
us from worrying about it."
     "Yes, it serves that purpose," he conceded.  "But that  purpose  is  an
unworthy  one for average men  and a travesty for sorcerers. Without a clear
view of death, there is no order, no sobriety, no beauty. Sorcerers struggle
to gain  this crucial insight in order to help  them realize at the  deepest
possible  level that they  have  no assurance  whatsoever  their  lives will
continue beyond the moment. That realization gives sorcerers  the courage to
be  patient and yet  take action,  courage to be acquiescent  without  being
stupid."
     Don Juan fixed his gaze on me. He smiled and shook his head.
     "Yes," he went on. "The idea of death is  the only thing  that can give
sorcerers courage.  Strange, isn't it? It  gives sorcerers the courage to be
cunning without being  conceited, and above all  it gives them courage to be
ruthless without being self-important."
     He smiled again and nudged me. I told him I was absolutely terrified by
the idea of my death, that I  thought  about it constantly, but it certainly
didn't give me courage or spur me to take action. It only made me cynical or
caused me to lapse into moods of profound melancholy.
     "Your problem is  very simple," he said. "You become easily obsessed. I
have been telling you that sorcerers  stalk themselves in order to break the
power of their obsessions.  There  are many ways of stalking oneself. If you
don't want to use the idea of your death, use the poems you read me to stalk
yourself."
     "I beg your pardon?"
     "I have told you that  there are many  reasons I like  poems," he said.
"What I do is stalk myself with them.  I deliver a jolt to myself with them.
I  listen, and as you read, I shut off my internal dialogue and let my inner
silence  gain momentum. Then  the combination of  the  poem  and the silence
delivers the jolt."
     He explained  that poets unconsciously  long for  the sorcerers' world.
Because they are not sorcerers on the path of knowledge, longing is all they
have.
     "Let us see if  you can feel what I'm talking about,"  he said, handing
me a book of poems by Jose Gorostiza.
     I opened it at the bookmark and he pointed to the poem he liked.
     . . . this incessant stubborn dying,
     this living death,
     that slays you, oh God,
     in your rigorous handiwork,
     in the roses, in the stones,
     in the indomitable stars
     and in the flesh that burns out,
     like a bonfire lit by a song,
     a dream,
     a hue that hits the eye.
     . . . and you, yourself,
     perhaps have died eternities of ages out there,
     without us knowing about it,
     we dregs, crumbs, ashes of you;
     you that still are present,
     like a star faked by its very light,
     an empty light without star
     that reaches us,
     biding
     its infinite catastrophe.
     "As I  hear the words,"  don Juan said when I had  finished reading, "I
feel that that man is seeing the essence of things and I can see with him. I
don't care what the poem is about. I care only  about the feeling the poet's
longing brings me. I borrow his  longing, and with it I  borrow the  beauty.
And  marvel at  the  fact  that he, like a  true warrior, lavishes it on the
recipients, the  beholders,  retaining for himself  only  his  longing. This
jolt, this shock of beauty, is stalking."
     I was very moved. Don Juan's explanation had touched a strange chord in
me.
     "Would you say, don Juan, that death is the only real enemy we have?" I
asked him a moment later.
     "No,"  he  said with conviction. "Death  is  not an enemy,  although it
appears to be. Death is not our destroyer, although we think it is."
     "What is it, then, if not our destroyer?" I asked.
     "Sorcerers say death is the only  worthy opponent we have," he replied.
"Death is our challenger. We are born to take that challenge, average men or
sorcerers. Sorcerers know about it; average men do not."
     "I personally would say, don Juan, life, not death, is the challenge."
     "Life is the process by  means of which death challenges us,"  he said.
"Death  is the  active force. Life is the arena. And in that arena there are
only two contenders at any time: oneself and death."
     "I would think, don Juan, that we  human beings are the challengers," I
said.
     "Not at all," he retorted.  "We are passive. Think about h. If we move,
it's only  when we  feel the pressure of death.  Death sets the pace for our
actions and feelings  and pushes us relentlessly until it breaks us and wins
the bout, or else we rise above all possibilities and defeat death.
     "Sorcerers defeat death and death  acknowledges  the  defeat by letting
the sorcerers go free, never to be challenged
     again."
     "Does that mean that sorcerers become immortal?"
     "No. It doesn't mean that," he replied. "Death stops challenging  them,
that's all."
     "But what does that mean, don Juan?" I asked.
     "It  means thought has taken a  somersault into the inconceivable,"  he
said.
     "What  is a  somersault  of thought  into the  inconceivable?" I asked,
trying not to sound belligerent.  "The  problem you and I have is that we do
not share the same meanings."
     "You're not being truthful," don Juan interrupted. "You understand what
I mean. For you to demand a rational explanation of 'a somersault of thought
into the inconceivable' is a travesty. You know exactly what it is."
     "No, I don't," I said.
     And then  I realized that I  did,  or rather,  that I intuited  what it
meant.  There was  some part of me that  could transcend my  rationality and
understand  and  explain,  beyond the  level  of  metaphor,  a somersault of
thought  into  the  inconceivable. The  trouble was  that part of me was not
strong enough to surface at will.
     I said as much to don Juan, who laughed and commented that my awareness
was like a yo-yo. Sometimes it rose to a high spot and my command  was keen,
while at others it descended  and I became a rational moron. But most of the
time it hovered at an unworthy median where I was neither fish nor fowl.
     "A somersault of thought into the inconceivable," he explained with  an
air of resignation, "is the  descent of the spirit; the act of  breaking our
perceptual barriers. It is the moment in  which man's perception reaches its
limits.  Sorcerers practice the art  of  sending scouts, advance runners, to
probe  our perceptual limits. This is another reason I  like  poems.  I take
them as advance runners. But,  as I've said to you  before, poets don't know
as exactly as sorcerers what those advance runners can accomplish."
     In the early evening,  don Juan said that we had many things to discuss
and asked  me if I wanted  to go  for a walk. I was  in  a peculiar state of
mind.  Earlier I  had noticed  a strange aloofness  in myself that came  and
went. At first  I thought it was physical fatigue clouding my thoughts.  But
my  thoughts  were crystal  clear.  So  I became convinced  that my  strange
detachment was a product of my shift to heightened awareness.
     We left the house and strolled around the town's plaza. I quickly asked
don  Juan about my aloofness  before he had  a  chance to  begin on anything
else. He explained it as a shift of energy. He said that  as the energy that
was ordinarily  used to maintain the fixed position of  the assemblage point
became  liberated,  it  focused  automatically  on that  connecting link. He
assured  me  that  there were no techniques or  maneuvers  for a sorcerer to
learn beforehand to move energy from one place to the other. Rather it was a
matter of  an  instantaneous shift  taking place  once  a certain  level  of
proficiency had been attained.
     I asked him  what the level of proficiency was. Pure  understanding, he
replied. In order to attain that instantaneous shift of energy, one needed a
clear connection with intent, and to  get a clear connection one needed only
to intend it through pure understanding.
     Naturally I wanted him to  explain pure  understanding. He  laughed and
sat down on a bench.
     "I'm going to tell you something fundamental about  sorcerers and their
acts of sorcery," he  went on.  "Something about  the  somersault  of  their
thought into the inconceivable."
     He said  that some sorcerers  were storytellers. Storytelling for  them
was not  only  the advance  runner that probed  their perceptual  limits but
their  path to perfection,  to power,  to the spirit. He  was  quiet  for  a
moment, obviously searching for an appropriate example.  Then he reminded me
that the  Yaqui Indians had a collection  of  historical  events they called
"the memorable dates." I knew that the memorable dates were oral accounts of
their history as a nation  when they waged war against the invaders of their
homeland:  the  Spaniards  first,  the  Mexicans  later.  Don Juan,  a Yaqui
himself, stated emphatically that the memorable dates were accounts of their
defeats and disintegration.
     "So, what would you  say," he asked me,  "since you are a learned  man,
about a sorcerer storyteller's taking an  account from the memorable dates -
let's say,  for example, the story of Calixto Muni - and changing the ending
so that instead  of describing  how Calixto Muni was drawn and quartered  by
the  Spanish  executioners, which  is  what happened,  he tells  a story  of
Calixto Muni the victorious rebel who succeeded in liberating his people?"
     I  knew the story of Calixto Muni. He was a Yaqui Indian who, according
to the  memorable dates, served  for many years on a  buccaneer ship in  the
Caribbean in  order  to learn war strategy.  Then he returned to his  native
Sonora,  managed to start an  uprising against the Spaniards  and declared a
war of independence, only to be betrayed, captured, and executed.
     Don Juan coaxed me to comment. I told him I would have  to  assume that
changing the factual account  in the  manner  he  was describing would be  a
psychological  device,  a  sort  of   wishful   thinking  on  the   sorcerer
storyteller's part. Or perhaps it would  be a personal, idiosyncratic way of
alleviating frustration. I  added  that  I  would even  call such a sorcerer
storyteller a patriot because he was unable to accept bitter defeat.
     Don Juan laughed until he was choking.
     "But it's not a matter  of one sorcerer storyteller," he  argued. "They
all do that."
     "Then it's a socially sanctioned device to express the wishful thinking
of  a  whole society,"  I retorted. "A  socially  accepted  way of releasing
psychological stress collectively."
     "Your argument is  glib  and convincing and  reasonable," he commented.
"But because your spirit is dead, you can't see the flaw hi your argument."
     He eyed me  as if coaxing me to understand what he was saying. I had no
comment, and anything I might have said would have made me sound peevish.
     "The  sorcerer storyteller who  changes  the  ending of  the  'factual'
account,"  he said, "does it at  the direction and under the auspices of the
spirit. Because he can manipulate his elusive connection with intent, he can
actually  change  things.  The  sorcerer storyteller  signals  that  he  has
intended it by taking off his hat, putting  it on the ground, and turning it
a full three hundred and sixty  degrees counterclockwise. Under the auspices
of  the spirit, that simple act  plunges him  into the spirit itself. He has
let his thought somersault into the inconceivable."
     Don  Juan lifted his arm  above his head and pointed  for an instant to
the sky above the horizon.
     "Because  his pure understanding  is  an advance  runner  probing  that
immensity out  there,"  don  Juan went on, "the  sorcerer  storyteller knows
without a shadow of doubt that somewhere, somehow, in that infinity, at this
very moment the  spirit  has descended.  Calixto  Muni is victorious. He has
delivered his people. His goal has transcended his person."

     Moving The Assemblage Point

     A couple of  days later, don  Juan and  I made a trip to the mountains.
Halfway up the foothills we sat down to rest. Earlier that day, don Juan had
decided  to find an appropriate setting in which to explain  some  intricate
aspects of  the mastery  of awareness.  Usually he preferred  to  go  to the
closer western range of  mountains. This time, however, he chose the eastern
peaks. They were  much higher and  farther  away.  To  me they  seemed  more
ominous, darker,  and  more massive.  But  I  could  not tell  whether  this
impression was my own or if I had somehow absorbed don Juan's feelings about
these mountains.
     I  opened  my  backpack.  The women  seers from  don  Juan's group  had
prepared  it for me and  I discovered that  they had  packed  some cheese. I
experienced a moment of annoyance, because while I liked cheese, it  did not
agree  with me. Yet I  was  incapable  of refusing it  whenever it was  made
available.
     Don  Juan had pointed this out as a true weakness  and had made  fun of
me. I  was  embarrassed at first but found that when I did not  have  cheese
around  I did not miss it. The problem was that the practical jokers  in don
Juan's group always packed a big chunk of cheese for me, which, of course, I
always ended up eating.
     "Finish it in one  sitting," don  Juan  advised me  with  a mischievous
glint in his eyes. "That way you won't have to worry about it anymore."
     Perhaps influenced by his suggestion, I had the most intense  desire to
devour the whole chunk. Don Juan laughed so much I suspected that once again
he had schemed with his group to set me up.
     In a more serious mood, he  suggested that we spend the night  there in
the foothills and take a day or two to reach the higher peaks. I agreed.
     Don  Juan  casually asked me if I had recalled anything about  the four
moods  of stalking.  I  admitted  that I had tried, but  that my  memory had
failed me.
     "Don't  you  remember my  teaching you the  nature of ruthlessness?" he
asked. "Ruthlessness, the opposite of self-pity?"
     I could  not remember.  Don Juan appeared to be considering what to say
next. Then he stopped. The corners of his mouth dropped in a gesture of sham
impotence. He  shrugged  his shoulders, stood up and quickly walked a  short
distance to a small level spot on top of a hill.
     "All  sorcerers are  ruthless," he said,  as we sat  down on  the  flat
ground. "But you know this. We have discussed this concept at length."
     After a long silence, he said that we were going to continue discussing
the abstract cores of the sorcery stories, but that he intended to talk less
and  less about them because the time was approaching when it would be up to
me to discover them and allow them to reveal their meaning.
     "As I have already told you," he said, "the fourth abstract core of the
sorcery stories is  called  the descent of  the  spirit,  or  being moved by
intent. The story says that hi order to  let the mysteries of sorcery reveal
themselves  to the  man we've been talking about,  it  was necessary for the
spirit to descend  on  that man. The spirit chose a moment when  the man was
distracted, unguarded, and, showing no pity, the  spirit let its presence by
itself move the man's assemblage point to a specific position. This spot was
known to  sorcerers  from  then  on  as  the place  of no pity. Ruthlessness
became, in this way, the first principle of sorcery.
     "The  first principle  should  not be confused with the first effect of
sorcery apprenticeship,  which  is the shift  between normal and  heightened
awareness."
     "I don't understand what you are trying to tell me," I complained.
     "What I want to say is  that, to all appearances, having the assemblage
point  shift  is  the  first  thing  that  actually  happens  to  a  sorcery
apprentice," he replied. "So, it is only natural for an apprentice to assume
that this is the first principle of sorcery. But it is not.  Ruthlessness is
the first principle of sorcery. But we have discussed this  before. Now I am
only trying to help you remember."
     I could  honestly  have said  that I had  no idea  what  he was talking
about,  but  I also had  the strange  sensation that I did. "Bring  back the
recollection  of  the  first  time I  taught you  ruthlessness,"  he  urged.
"Recollecting has to do with moving the assemblage point."
     He waited a moment to see whether I was following his suggestion. Since
it was obvious that I could not, he continued his explanation. He said that,
mysterious as the shift into  heightened awareness was, all  that one needed
to accomplish it was the presence of the spirit.
     I remarked that his statements  that day  either were extremely obscure
or I was  terribly dense, because I could not  follow his line of thought at
all. He replied firmly  that my  confusion was unimportant and insisted that
the only  thing  of real  importance was that  I understand  that  the  mere
contact with the spirit could  bring about  any  movement of the  assemblage
point.
     "I've  told you the nagual  is the conduit of  the spirit," he went on.
"Since he  spends a lifetime impeccably redefining his  connecting link with
intent, and since  he has  more energy than  the average man, he can let the
spirit  express  itself  through  him.  So,  the first  thing  the  sorcerer
apprentice experiences is a shift in his level of awareness, a shift brought
about simply by the presence  of the nagual. And what I want you to  know is
that there  really is no procedure involved hi making the  assemblage  point
move. The spirit touches the apprentice and his  assemblage point moves.  It
is as simple as that."
     I   told  him  that  his  assertions  were   disturbing   because  they
contradicted  what  I  had  painfully  learned  to  accept through  personal
experience:  that  heightened  awareness was  feasible  as a  sophisticated,
although  inexplicable, maneuver performed by don Juan  by means of which he
manipulated my perception.  Throughout the  years of our association, he had
time after time made me enter into heightened awareness by striking me on my
back. I pointed out this contradiction.
     He replied that striking my back was more a trick to  trap my attention
and remove doubts from my mind than a bona
     ftde maneuver to manipulate my perception. He called it a simple trick,
in keeping with his moderate personality. He commented, not quite as a joke,
that I was lucky he was a plain man, not given to weird behavior. Otherwise,
instead of simple tricks, I would have had  to endure bizarre rituals before
he  could  remove  all  doubts  from  my  mind, to let the  spirit  move  my
assemblage point.
     "What we need to do to allow magic to get hold of us is to banish doubt
from our minds," he said. "Once doubts are banished, anything is possible."
     He reminded me of an event I had witnessed some months before in Mexico
City,  which I had found to be incomprehensible until  he had  explained it,
using the sorcerers' paradigm.
     What I  had witnessed was  a surgical operation performed  by  a famous
psychic healer. A friend of mine was the patient. The healer was a woman who
entered a very dramatic trance to operate on him.
     I  was  able  to  observe  that,  using a kitchen  knife, she  cut  his
abdominal cavity open in the  umbilical region, detached his diseased liver,
washed  it in a bucket of alcohol,  put  it back in and closed the bloodless
opening with just the pressure of her hands.
     There had been a number  of people in the  semidark room,  witnesses to
the operation. Some  of them seemed to be interested observers like  myself.
The others seemed to be the healer's helpers.
     After  the operation, I talked briefly to  three of the observers. They
all agreed that they  had witnessed the same events I had. When  I talked to
my  friend, the patient, he reported  that  he had felt  the operation as  a
dull, constant
     pain in his stomach and a burning sensation on his right side.
     I had  narrated all  of this  to  don  Juan  and I  had even ventured a
cynical explanation. I had told him that the semidarkness of the room, in my
opinion, lent itself perfectly to all kinds of sleight  of hand, which could
have accounted  for the sight of the internal organs being pulled out of the
abdominal cavity and washed in alcohol.  The  emotional shock  caused by the
healer's dramatic  trance  - which  I also considered  trickery  - helped to
create an atmosphere of almost religious faith.
     Don Juan immediately pointed out that this was a cynical opinion, not a
cynical explanation, because it did not explain the  fact that my friend had
really gotten well. Don  Juan had then proposed an alternative view based on
sorcerers' knowledge. He had explained that the event  hinged on the salient
fact that the healer was capable of moving the assemblage point of the exact
number of people in her  audience. The only trickery involved - if one could
call it trickery - was that the number of people present in the  room  could
not exceed the number she could handle.
     Her dramatic trance and the accompanying histrionics were, according to
him, either well-thought-out devices the healer  used to trap  the attention
of  those present  or  unconscious  maneuvers dictated by the spirit itself.
Whichever, they  were the  most  appropriate means  whereby the healer could
foster  the  unity of thought needed to remove doubt from the minds of those
present and force them into heightened awareness.
     When she  cut  the  body open  with  a kitchen  knife  and removed  the
internal organs  it was not, don  Juan had stressed, sleight  of hand. These
were bona  fide  events,  which,  by virtue of  taking  place  in heightened
awareness, were outside the realm of everyday judgment.
     I had asked don Juan how the healer could manage to move the assemblage
points  of those people without touching  them. His  reply had been that the
healer's  power,  a gift  or  a stupendous accomplishment, was to serve as a
conduit for the spirit. It was the  spirit, he had said, and not the healer,
which had moved those assemblage points.
     "I explained to you then, although you didn't understand a word of it,"
don Juan went on, "that the healer's art and power was to remove doubts from
the minds of those present. By doing this, she was able to allow the  spirit
to move their assemblage points. Once those points had moved, everything was
possible. They had entered into the realm where miracles are commonplace."
     He asserted  emphatically  that  the  healer  must  also  have  been  a
sorceress, and that if I made an  effort to remember the operation, I  would
remember that she had  been ruthless with the  people around her, especially
the patient.
     I repeated to  him what I could recall  of  the session. The  pitch and
tone of the healer's  flat, feminine voice  changed  dramatically  when  she
entered a trance  into a raspy, deep, male voice. That voice announced  that
the  spirit  of  a  warrior  of pre-Columbian  antiquity  had possessed  the
healer's body. Once the announcement was made, the healer's attitude changed
dramatically.  She was  possessed.  She was  obviously  absolutely  sure  of
herself, and she proceeded to operate with total certainty and firmness.
     "I  prefer the word 'ruthlessness'  to 'certainty' and 'firmness,'" don
Juan  commented, then  continued. "That healer had to be ruthless  to create
the proper setting for the spirit's intervention."
     He  asserted  that events difficult to explain, such as that operation,
were really very simple. They  were  made  difficult  by our insistence upon
thinking. If we did not think, everything fit into place.
     "That is truly absurd, don Juan," I said and really meant it.
     I  reminded   him  that  he  demanded   serious  thinking  of  all  his
apprentices,  and even  criticized  his own teacher  for not  being  a  good
thinker.
     "Of course  I  insist that everyone around me think clearly,"  he said.
"And  I explain, to  anyone who wants to listen, that the only  way to think
clearly  is  to  not  think  at  all. I  was convinced you  understood  this
sorcerers' contradiction."
     In a loud voice I protested the obscurity of his statements. He laughed
and made fun of my compulsion to defend myself. Then he explained again that
for a  sorcerer there were two types of  thinking. One was average day-today
thinking, which was ruled by the normal position of his assemblage point. It
was  muddled thinking that did not really answer  his needs and  left  great
murkiness in his head. The other was  precise  thinking. It  was functional,
economical, and left very few things unexplained. Don Juan remarked that for
this type of  thinking  to prevail the assemblage point  had  to move. Or at
least the day-to-day type thinking had to stop to allow the assemblage point
to shift. Thus the apparent contradiction, which was really no contradiction
at all.
     "I want you to recall something you have done in the past," he said. "I
want you to recall a  special movement of your  assemblage point. And to  do
this, you have to stop thinking the way you normally think. Then the  other,
the type I call clear thinking, will take over and make you recollect."
     "But how  do  I stop thinking?" I  asked, although I knew what  he  was
going to reply.
     "By intending the movement of your assemblage  point," he said. "Intent
is beckoned with the eyes."
     I  told don  Juan  that  my mind  was shifting back and  forth  between
moments  of  tremendous lucidity,  when  everything was  crystal clear,  and
lapses into profound mental fatigue during which I could not understand what
he was saying. He tried to put me at ease, explaining that my "  instability
was caused by a slight  fluctuation  of my assemblage point, which  had  not
stabilized  in  the  new  position  it  had reached some years  earlier. The
fluctuation was the result of left-over feelings of self-pity.
     "What new position is that, don Juan?" I asked.
     "Years ago - and this is what I want you to recollect - your assemblage
point reached the place of no pity," he replied.
     "I beg your pardon?" I said.
     "The place of  no pity  is the site of ruthlessness," he said. "But you
know all this. For  the  time being, though, until you recollect,  let's say
that  ruthlessness, being a  specific position  of the  assemblage point, is
shown in the eyes of sorcerers.  It's like a shimmering film over  the eyes.
The  eyes  of  sorcerers  are brilliant. The greater  the  shine,  the  more
ruthless the sorcerer is. At this moment, your eyes
     are dull."
     He explained that  when the assemblage point moved to the  place of  no
pity, the eyes began to  shine. The firmer the grip of  the assemblage point
on its new position, the more the eyes shone.
     "Try to recall what you already know about this," he urged me.  He kept
quiet for a moment, then spoke without looking at me.
     "Recollecting  is  not  the   same  as   remembering,"   he  continued.
"Remembering  is  dictated  by  the  day-to-day  type  of  thinking,   while
recollecting  is dictated  by  the  movement  of  the  assemblage  point.  A
recapitulation of their  lives,  which sorcerers  do, is the  key  to moving
their assemblage points.  Sorcerers start  their recapitulation by thinking,
by remembering the most important acts of their lives. From  merely thinking
about them  they then  move on to actually being  at  the site of the event.
When they can do that - be at the site of the event - they have successfully
shifted their assemblage point to  the precise spot  it  was  when the event
took  place.  Bringing  back  the total  event  by  means  of  shifting  the
assemblage point is known as sorcerers' recollection."
     He stared at  me for an  instant  as if  trying  to  make  sure  I  was
listening.
     "Our  assemblage  points   are  constantly  shifting,"  he   explained,
"imperceptible  shifts.  Sorcerers  believe that  in  order  to  make  their
assemblage  points shift to precise spots we must engage intent. Since there
is no way of knowing what intent is, sorcerers let their eyes beckon it."
     "All this is truly incomprehensible to me," I said.
     Don  Juan put his hands behind  his  head and lay down on the ground. I
did the  same. We  remained quiet for  a  long  time.  The wind scudded  the
clouds. Their movement almost made me feel  dizzy. And the dizziness changed
abruptly into a familiar sense of anguish.
     Every time I was with don Juan,  I felt, especially in  moments of rest
and quiet, an overwhelming sensation of despair  - a longing for something I
could not describe. When  I was alone, or with other  people,  I was never a
victim  of this  feeling.  Don  Juan  had  explained  that what  I felt  and
interpreted  as longing was in fact  the sudden  movement  of my  assemblage
point.
     When don Juan started to speak, all of a sudden  the sound of his voice
jolted me and I sat up.
     "You must recollect the  first time your eyes shone," he said, "because
that was the first time your assemblage point reached  the place of no pity.
Ruthlessness possessed you then. Ruthlessness makes  sorcerers' eyes  shine,
and that  shine beckons  intent. Each spot to which their assemblage  points
move is indicated by a  specific shine  of their eyes. Since their eyes have
their own  memory, they can call up the recollection  of any spot by calling
up the specific shine associated with that spot."
     He  explained that  the reason  sorcerers put so much emphasis  on  the
shine  of  their  eyes and on  their gaze is  because the eyes  are directly
connected to intent. Contradictory as it might sound,  the truth is that the
eyes are only superficially connected to  the world of everyday life.  Their
deeper connection is to the abstract. I could not conceive how my eyes could
store that sort of  information, and  I said  as  much. Don Juan's reply was
that man's  possibilities are so vast and mysterious  that sorcerers, rather
than thinking about them, had  chosen to explore them, with no  hope of ever
understanding them.
     I asked him if an average man's eyes were also affected by intent.
     "Of course!" he exclaimed. "You know all this. But you know it  at such
a deep  level that it  is silent knowledge. You haven't sufficient energy to
explain it, even to yourself.
     "The average man knows the same thing  about his  eyes, but he has even
less energy than you. The  only advantages sorcerers may have  over  average
men is  that they  have  stored  their energy, which means  a more  precise,
clearer  connecting link  with intent. Naturally,  it  also  means  they can
recollect  at will, using  the shine of their eyes to move  their assemblage
points."
     Don Juan stopped talking and fixed me with his gaze. I clearly felt his
eyes guiding, pushing and  pulling something indefinite in me.  I  could not
break  away  from his  stare. His concentration  was so intense it  actually
caused a physical  sensation in me:  I felt as if  I  were inside a furnace.
And, quite abruptly, I was looking inward. It was a sensation very much like
being  in  an  absentminded  reverie,  but  with  the  strange  accompanying
sensation  of  an intense awareness  of  myself and an absence of  thoughts.
Supremely aware, I was looking inward, into nothingness.
     With a gigantic effort, I pulled myself out of it and stood up.
     "What did you do to me, don Juan?"
     "Sometimes you are absolutely unbearable," he  said. "Your wastefulness
is infuriating. Your assemblage point was just in the most advantageous spot
to recollect anything you wanted, and what did you do? You let it all go, to
ask me what I did to you."
     He kept silent for a moment, and then smiled as I sat down again.
     "But being annoying is really your greatest  asset," he  added. "So why
should I complain?"
     Both of us broke into a loud laugh. It was a private joke.
     Years before,  I had been  both very  moved  and  very  confused by don
Juan's tremendous dedication to  helping me.  I  could  not imagine  why  he
should show me such kindness. It was evident that he did not  need me in any
way in  his life. He was obviously  not investing in me. But  I had learned,
through life's  painful experiences, that nothing was free; and being unable
to foresee what don Juan's reward would be made me tremendously uneasy.
     One day  I asked don Juan point-blank, in  a very cynical tone, what he
was getting out of our  association.  I said that  I  had  not  been able to
guess.
     "Nothing you would understand," he replied.
     His answer annoyed me. Belligerently  I told him I was not  stupid, and
he could at least try to explain it to me.
     "Well, let me just say that, although you  could understand it, you are
certainly not going to like it," he said with the smile  he always had  when
he was setting me up. "You see, I really want to spare you."
     I was hooked, and I insisted that he tell me what he meant.
     "Are you  sure  you  want to hear the truth?" he asked, knowing I could
never say no, even if my life depended on it.
     "Of  course I want to hear whatever it  is you're dangling  in front of
me," I said cuttingly.
     He  started to laugh  as if  at a  big joke; the more  he  laughed, the
greater my annoyance.
     "I don't see what's so funny," I said.
     "Sometimes the underlying truth shouldn't be  tampered with,"  he said.
"The underlying truth here is  like a block at the bottom of  a  big pile of
things, a cornerstone. If we take a hard  look at the bottom block, we might
not like the results. I prefer to avoid that."
     He  laughed again. His eyes,  shining  with mischievous-ness, seemed to
invite me to pursue the subject further. And I  insisted again that I had to
know what he was talking about. I tried to sound calm but persistent.
     "Well, if that is what you want,"  he said with  the air of one who had
been  overwhelmed  by the  request.  "First  of  all, I'd  like to say  that
everything I do for you is free. You  don't have to pay for it. As you know,
I've  been impeccable with you. And as  you also know, my impeccability with
you is not an investment. I am not grooming you to take care of me when I am
too feeble  to  look after  myself. But I do get  something  of incalculable
value out of our association, a sort of  reward for dealing impeccably  with
that bottom block I've mentioned. And what I get  is the very thing  you are
perhaps not going to understand or like."
     He stopped and peered at me, with a devilish glint in his eyes.
     "Tell me about it, don Juan!" I exclaimed, irritated  with his delaying
tactics.
     "I want you to bear  in mind that I am telling you at your insistence,"
he said, still smiling.
     He paused again. By then I was fuming.
     "If  you judge me by my actions with  you," he said, "you would have to
admit that I have been a  paragon of patience and consistency. But what  you
don't know  is that to accomplish this I have had to fight for impeccability
as I have never  fought before. In order to spend time with you,  I have had
to transform  myself daily, restraining myself with  the  most  excruciating
effort."
     Don Juan had been  right. I did  not like what he  said. I tried not to
lose face and made a sarcastic comeback.
     "I'm not that bad, don Juan," I said.
     My voice sounded surprisingly unnatural to me.
     "Oh, yes, you are that bad,"  he said with a serious  expression.  "You
are  petty,  wasteful, opinionated, coercive, short-tempered, conceited. You
are morose,  ponderous, and  ungrateful.  You have an inexhaustible capacity
for self-indulgence. And worst of all, you have an exalted idea of yourself,
with nothing whatever to back it up.
     "I could sincerely  say  that  your mere presence makes  me  feel  like
vomiting."
     I wanted to get angry. I wanted to protest,  to complain that he had no
right  to talk to me that  way, but I could not utter a  single  word. I was
crushed. I felt numb.
     My expression, upon hearing the bottom truth, must have been something,
for don Juan  broke into such gales  of laughter I thought  he was  going to
choke.
     "I told you you  were not going to like it or understand it," he  said.
"Warriors'  reasons are very simple, but their finesse is  extreme. It is  a
rare opportunity for a warrior to be given a genuine chance to be impeccable
in spite of his basic feelings. You gave me such a unique chance. The act of
giving freely and impeccably rejuvenates me and renews my wonder. What I get
from our association  is indeed  of incalculable  value  to me. I am in your
debt."
     His eyes were shining, but without mischievousness, as he peered at me.
     Don Juan began to explain what he had done.
     "I  am the nagual, I moved your  assemblage point  with the shine of my
eyes," he said matter-of-factly.  "The  nagual's eyes can  do that. It's not
difficult. After all, the eyes of all living beings can  move someone else's
assemblage point,  especially if  their eyes are focused  on  intent.  Under
normal conditions, however, people's  eyes are focused on the world, looking
for food . . . looking for shelter. . . ."
     He nudged my shoulder.
     "Looking for love," he added and broke into a loud laugh.
     Don Juan constantly teased me  about  my  "looking for love." He  never
forgot  a  naive answer I once gave him when he had asked me what I actively
looked for in life. He had been steering me toward  admitting that I did not
have a
     clear goal, and he roared with laughter when I said  that I was looking
for love.
     "A good hunter mesmerizes his prey  with  his eyes," he went on.  "With
his gaze he moves the assemblage point of his prey, and yet his eyes  are on
the world, looking for food."
     I asked  him if sorcerers could mesmerize  people with  their  gaze. He
chuckled and said that what I really wanted to know was if I could mesmerize
women  with my gaze, in spite of the fact that  my eyes were focused  on the
world, looking  for love. He  added, seriously, that  the sorcerers'  safety
valve was that by the time  their  eyes were really focused on  intent, they
were no longer interested in mesmerizing anyone.
     "But, for sorcerers to use the shine of their eyes to move their own or
anyone  else's  assemblage point," he continued,  "they have to be ruthless.
That  is,  they  have  to be familiar  with that specific  position  of  the
assemblage  point called the place of no pity.  This is especially  true for
the naguals."
     He said that each nagual developed a brand of ruthless-ness specific to
him alone.  He  took  my  case as an  example and said  that, because of  my
unstable  natural  configuration,  I  appeared  to  seers  as  a  sphere  of
luminosity  not composed  of  four balls compressed  into  one  - the  usual
structure  of a nagual  - but  as a sphere composed of only three compressed
balls. This configuration made me automatically hide my ruthlessness  behind
a mask of indulgence and laxness.
     "Naguals  are very misleading," don Juan went on. "They always give the
impression  of  something they are  not, and  they do  it so completely that
everybody, including those who know them best, believe their masquerade."
     "I really don't understand  how you can say that I am masquerading, don
Juan," I protested.
     "You  pass yourself off as an indulgent, relaxed man," he id. "You give
the impression of being  generous, of having great compassion. And everybody
is  convinced of your genuineness. They can  even swear that that is the way
you are."
     "But that is the  way  I am!" Don Juan doubled  up  with  laughter. The
direction the conversation had taken was not to my ting. I wanted to set the
record  straight. I argued  vehemently that I  was truthful in  everything I
did, and challenged him to give me an example of my being otherwise. He said
I  compulsively treated people with  unwarranted generosity,  giving  them a
false  sense of my ease and  openness. And I  argued that  being open was my
nature. He  laughed and retorted that if  this were the case, why  should be
that I always demanded, without voicing it, that the people I dealt with  be
aware I  was  deceiving them? The roof was that when they failed to be aware
of  my ploy and took my pseudo-laxness at face value, I  turned on them with
exactly the cold ruthlessness I was trying to mask.
     His comments  made  me feel  desperate, because  I  couldn't argue with
them. I remained  quiet.  I did  not want to  show that  I  was  hurt. I was
wondering what to do when e stood and started to walk away. I stopped him by
holding his sleeve. It was  an unplanned move on  my  part which startled me
and made him laugh. He sat down again with a look of surprise on his face.
     "I didn't mean  to be rude," I said,  "but I've  got to know more about
this. It upsets me."
     "Make  your  assemblage   point  move,"   he  urged.  "We've  discussed
ruthlessness before. Recollect it!"
     He eyed me  with genuine expectation  although he must have seen that I
could  not recollect anything, for  he continued to  talk about the naguals'
patterns  of  ruthlessness.  He  said  that  his  own  method  consisted  of
subjecting people  to  a  flurry  of coercion and denial, hidden behind sham
understanding and reasonableness.
     "What about all the  explanations you  give  me?" I asked. "Aren't they
the result of genuine reasonableness and desire to help me understand?"
     "No," he replied. "They are the result of my ruthlessness."
     I argued passionately that my own desire to  understand was genuine. He
patted  me on the shoulder  and explained that my desire to  understand  was
genuine, but  my generosity  was  not.  He said  that naguals  masked  their
ruthless-ness automatically, even against their will.
     As I  listened to  his explanation, I had the peculiar sensation in the
back of  my  mind  that  at  some  point  we  had  covered  the  concept  of
ruthlessness extensively.
     "I'm not a rational man," he continued, looking  into my eyes. "I  only
appear  to  be  because my  mask  is so  effective.  What  you  perceive  as
reasonableness is my lack of  pity,  because that's what ruthlessness  is: a
total lack of pity.
     "In your  case, since you  mask your lack of pity with generosity,  you
appear at ease, open.  But actually you are as generous as I  am reasonable.
We are both fakes. We have perfected the art of disguising the fact that  we
feel no pity."
     He  said his  benefactor's  total lack of pity  was  masked  behind the
facade of an easygoing,  practical joker with an irresistible need  to  poke
fun at anyone with whom he came into contact.
     "My benefactor's mask was that of a happy, unruffled man without a care
in the world," don Juan continued. "But underneath all that he was, like all
the naguals, as cold as the arctic wind."
     "But you are not cold, don Juan," I said sincerely.
     "Of course I am," he  insisted. "The effectiveness  of my mask  is what
gives you the impression of warmth."
     He  went  on  to explain  that the nagual Elias's  mask consisted  of a
maddening  meticulousness about all details  and accuracy, which created the
false impression of attention and thoroughness.
     He started  to describe the nagual Elias's  behavior.  As he talked, he
kept watching me. And perhaps because he was observing me so intently, I was
unable  to concentrate at all m what he was saying.  I made a supreme effort
to gather my thoughts.
     He  watched  me   for  an   instant,  then  went  back  to   explaining
ruthlessness, but I no longer needed  his explanation. I  old him that I had
recollected  what he wanted  me  to recollect:  the first time  my eyes  had
shone. Very early in my apprenticeship I had achieved - by  myself - a shift
in my  level of  awareness. My assemblage point reached  the position called
the place of no pity.

     The Place Of No Pity

     Don Juan told me that there was no need to talk about the details of my
recollection,  at least  not at that moment, because talk was used  only  to
lead  one to  recollecting.  Once  the assemblage  point  moved,  the  total
experience was relived. He also told me  the  best way  to assure a complete
recollection was to walk around.
     And  so  both of  us  stood  up;  walked  very  slowly and in  silence,
following a trail in those mountains, until I had recollected everything.
     We were  in  the outskirts of Guaymas, in  northern Mexico, on a  drive
from Nogales, Arizona, when it became evident to me that something was wrong
with  don  Juan.  For the last hour  or  so he had  been unusually quiet and
somber. I  did not  think  anything of  it,  but  then,  abruptly, his  body
twitched out of control. His chin hit his chest as if his neck muscles could
no longer support the weight of his head.
     "Are you getting carsick, don Juan?" I asked, suddenly alarmed.
     He did not answer. He was breathing through his mouth.
     During the first  part of our drive, which had taken several hours,  he
had  been fine. We had  talked  a great deal about  everything. When we  had
stopped in the city of Santa Ana  to get gas, he  was even  doing  push-outs
against the roof of the car to loosen up the muscles of his shoulders.
     "What's wrong with you, don Juan?" I asked.
     I  felt pangs of anxiety in my stomach.  With his head down, he mumbled
that  he  wanted to go to a  particular restaurant and in a  slow, faltering
voice gave me precise directions on how to get there.
     I parked my  car on a side  street,  a block from  the restaurant. As I
opened the  car  door on  my  side, he held onto my arm  with  an iron grip.
Painfully,  and with my  help, he  dragged himself out of  the car, over the
driver's seat.  Once  he was on the sidewalk, he held onto my shoulders with
both hands to straighten his back. In ominous silence, we shuffled  down the
street toward the dilapidated building where the restaurant was.
     Don Juan was hanging onto my arm with all his weight. His breathing was
so accelerated and the  tremor in his body  so alarming that I  panicked.  I
stumbled and had  to brace  myself against  the  wall  to  keep us both from
falling to  the sidewalk. My anxiety was so  intense  I could  not think.  I
looked into his eyes. They were dull. They did not have then- usual shine.
     We clumsily entered the restaurant and a solicitous waiter rushed over,
as if on cue, to help don Juan.
     "How are you feeling today?" he yelled into don Juan's ear.
     He practically carried don Juan  from the door to a table,  seated him,
and then disappeared.
     "Does he know you, don Juan?" I asked when we were seated.
     Without looking at  me, he mumbled something unintelligible. I stood up
and went to the kitchen to look for the busy waiter.
     "Do you know the old  man I am with?" I asked when I was able to corner
him.
     "Of course I know him," he said  with  the attitude of  someone who has
just enough patience to answer one question.  "He's the old man who  suffers
from strokes."
     That  statement  settled  things for me. I knew then that don Juan  had
suffered a mild stroke while we were driving. There was nothing I could have
done to avoid it but I felt helpless  and apprehensive. The feeling that the
worst had not yet happened made me feel sick to my stomach.
     I  went  back to the table and sat down  in silence. Suddenly the  same
waiter  arrived  with  two  plates of  fresh shrimp and two  large  bowls of
sea-turtle  soup.  The thought occurred to  me  that either  the  restaurant
served only shrimp and sea-turtle soup or don Juan ate the same  thing every
time he was here.
     The waiter  talked so loudly to  don Juan  he could be heard above  the
clatter of customers.
     "Hope you like your food!"  he yelled. "If you need me, just  lift your
arm. I'll come right away."
     Don  Juan  nodded  his  head affirmatively and the  waiter  left, after
patting don Juan affectionately on the back.
     Don Juan ate  voraciously, smiling to himself from time to  time. I was
so apprehensive that just the thought of food
     made me feel  nauseous.  But then  I reached  a familiar  threshold  of
anxiety, and the more I worried the hungrier
     I became. I tried the food and found it incredibly good.
     I felt somewhat better after having eaten,  but the  situation  had not
changed, nor had my anxiety diminished.
     When  don Juan was through eating, he shot his arm straight  above  his
head. In a moment, the waiter came over and handed me the bill.
     I paid him and he helped don  Juan  stand up.  He guided him by the arm
out of the restaurant. The waiter even helped him out to the street and said
goodbye to him effusively.
     We walked back to the car  in the same laborious way,  don Juan leaning
heavily on my arm, panting and stopping to catch his breath every few steps.
The waiter stood in the  doorway, as if to make sure I  was not going to let
don Juan fall.
     Don Juan took two or three full minutes to climb into the car.
     "Tell me, what can I do for you, don Juan?" I pleaded.
     "Turn the car around," he ordered in a faltering, barely audible voice.
"I want to go to the other side  of town, to the store. They  know me there,
too. They are my friends."
     I  told him I had no idea  what store he was talking about.  He mumbled
incoherently and had a tantrum. He stamped on the floor of the car with both
feet. He pouted and actually drooled on his shirt. Then he seemed to have an
instant  of lucidity.  I  got  extremely nervous,  watching him  struggle to
arrange his thoughts. He finally succeeded in telling me  how to get to  the
store.
     My discomfort was at its peak.  I was afraid that  the stroke  don Juan
had suffered was more serious than  I thought. I wanted to be rid of him, to
take him to his family or  his  friends, but I did not know who they were. I
did not know what else to do. I  made a U-turn and drove to the store  which
he said was on the other side of town.
     I wondered about going back to the restaurant to ask the  waiter if  he
knew  don  Juan's  family. I hoped  someone in the store might know him. The
more I thought about my predicament, the sorrier I felt for myself. Don Juan
was finished. I had a terrible sense of  loss, of doom. I was going  to miss
him,  but  my sense of loss was offset  by my feeling of annoyance at  being
saddled with him at his worst.
     I  drove around for almost an hour looking for  the store. I could  not
find it. Don Juan admitted that he might have made a mistake, that the store
might be in a different town. By then I was completely  exhausted and had no
idea what to do next.
     In my normal state of awareness I always had the strange feeling that I
knew more about  him than my reason told me. Now, under the pressure  of his
mental deterioration,  I was certain, without  knowing why, that his friends
were waiting for him somewhere in Mexico, although I did not know where.
     My exhaustion was more than physical. It was a combination of worry and
guilt. It worried  me that I was stuck with a feeble old man who  might, for
all I knew, be mortally ill. And I felt guilty for being so disloyal to him.
     I parked my car near the waterfront. It took nearly ten minutes for don
Juan  to  get  out of the  car.  We walked toward  the ocean,  but as we got
closer, don Juan shied like a mule and refused to go on. He mumbled that the
water of Guaymas Bay scared him.
     He turned around  and led me to  the main square: a dusty plaza without
even benches. Don  Juan sat down on  the curb.  A street-cleaning truck went
by,  rotating its steel brushes, but  no water  was squirting into them. The
cloud of dust made me cough.
     I was so  disturbed by  my situation  that the  thought of  leaving him
sitting there  crossed my mind.  I felt embarrassed  at  having  had such  a
thought and patted don Juan's back.
     "You must make  an effort  and  tell me where  I can take you,"  I said
softly. "Where do you want me to go."
     "I want you to go to hell!" he replied in a cracked, raspy voice.
     Hearing  him speak to me like this, I had the  suspicion that  don Juan
might not  have  suffered  from a  stroke,  but  some other  crippling brain
condition that had made him lose his mind and become violent.
     Suddenly he  stood up and  walked away from me. I noticed how  frail he
looked. He had aged  in  a matter  of hours. His natural vigor was gone, and
what I saw before me was a terribly old, weak man.
     I rushed to lend him a hand. A wave of immense pity enveloped me. I saw
myself old and weak, barely able to walk. It was intolerable. I was close to
weeping,  not  for don Juan but for myself. I  held his  arm and  made him a
silent promise that I would look after him, no matter what.
     I was lost in a reverie of self-pity when I felt the numbing force of a
slap across my face. Before I  recovered from the surprise, don Juan slapped
me  again across the back of my neck. He  was standing facing  me, shivering
with rage. His mouth was half open and shook uncontrollably.
     'Who are you?" he yelled in a strained voice.
     He turned to a group of onlookers who had immediately gathered.
     'I don't know who this man is," he said to them. "Help me. I'm a lonely
old Indian. He's a foreigner and he wants
     kill me. They do that to helpless old people, kill them for pleasure."
     There was  a  murmur of disapproval. Various young, husky men looked at
me menacingly. "What are you  doing, don Juan?" I asked him in a loud voice.
I wanted to reassure the crowd  that I was with him. "I don't know you," don
Juan shouted. "Leave me alone."
     He turned to the crowd and asked them  to  help  him. He wanted them to
restrain me  until the  police came. "Hold him,"  he insisted. "And someone,
please call  the  police. They'll know what to do with this man." I had  the
image of a Mexican jail. No  one would know here I was. The idea that months
would  go  by  before  anyone noticed my disappearance  made  me react  with
vicious speed. I kicked the first young man who came close me, then took off
at  a panicked run. I knew I was running for my life. Several young men  ran
after me. As I raced toward the main street, I realized that in a small city
like  Guaymas there  were policemen all  over the place patrolling  on foot.
There were  none in sight, and before I ran  into one,  I entered  the first
store in my path. I pretended to be looking for curios.
     The young men running after  me went  by noisily. I  conceived a  quick
plan: to buy as many  things as I could. I as counting on being taken for  a
tourist  by the people in the store. Then I was going to ask someone to help
me carry the packages to my car.  It took me quite a while to  select what I
wanted. I paid a young man in the store to help me carry my packages, but as
I got closer to my car,  I saw don Juan  standing by it, still surrounded by
people. He was talking to a policeman, who was taking notes.
     It was useless. My  plan had failed. There was no way to get to my car.
I instructed the young man to leave  my packages on the sidewalk. I told him
a friend of mine was going to drive by presently to take me  to my hotel. He
left and I remained hidden behind  the packages I was holding in front of my
face, out of sight of don Juan and the people around him.
     I  saw the policeman  examining  my California license plates. And that
completely convinced me I  was done for. The accusation of the crazy old man
was too grave.  And the fact that I had run  away would have only reinforced
my guilt in the eyes of any policeman. Besides, I would not have put it past
the policeman to ignore the truth, just to arrest a foreigner.
     I stood in a doorway for perhaps an hour. The policeman left,  but  the
crowd remained around  don  Juan, who was shouting and agitatedly moving his
arms. I was too far away to  hear what he was saying but I could imagine the
gist of his fast, nervous shouting.
     I was in desperate need  of  another plan. I considered checking into a
hotel and waiting  there for a couple of days before venturing out to get my
car. I thought of going back to the store and having them call a taxi. I had
never had  to hire a cab in Guaymas and I had no idea if there were any. But
my plan died instantly with the  realization  that if the police were fairly
competent, and had taken  don Juan seriously, they  would  check the hotels.
Perhaps the policeman had left don Juan in order to do just that.
     Another  alternative that crossed my mind was to get to the bus station
and catch a bus to any town along the
     international border. Or to take any bus leaving Guaymas any direction.
I abandoned the idea immediately. I was sure don Juan had  given  my name to
the policeman and the police had probably already alerted the bus companies.
My mind plunged into blind panic. I took short breaths calm my nerves.
     I  noticed  then that the  crowd  around  don  Juan  was  beginning  to
disperse. The policeman returned with a colleague, and the two of them moved
away, walking slowly toward the end of the street. It was at that point that
I  felt sudden  uncontrollable urge. It was as  if my body were disconnected
from my brain. I walked to my car, carrying  the packages. Without  even the
slightest trace  of  fear  or  concern, I opened the trunk, put the packages
inside, then opened the driver's door.
     Don Juan was on the sidewalk, by my car, looking at me  absentmindedly.
I  stared  at him with  a thoroughly uncharacteristic  coldness. Never in my
life had  I had such a feeling. It was  not  hatred I felt, or even anger. I
was not  even annoyed with him. What I felt was not resignation or patience,
either.  And   it  was  certainly   not  kindness.  Rather  it  was  a  cold
indifference, a frightening lack of pity. At that  instant, I could not have
cared less about what happened to don Juan or myself.
     Don Juan  shook  his upper body the way a dog shakes itself dry after a
swim. And then, as if all of it had only been a bad dream, he was again  the
man I knew. He quickly turned his jacket inside  out. It  was  a  reversible
jacket, beige on one side and black on the other. Now he vas wearing a black
jacket. He threw his straw hat inside :he car and carefully combed his hair.
He pulled his  shirt collar over the jacket collar, instantly making himself
look younger.  Without  saying  a word, he  helped me  put  the rest  of the
packages in the car.
     When the two policemen ran back to us, blowing their whistles, drawn by
the noise of the car  doors being opened  and  closed, don  Juan very nimbly
rushed  to meet them. He listened to them  attentively and assured them they
had.  nothing to worry about. He explained that they  must  have encountered
his father, a feeble old Indian who suffered from brain damage. As he talked
to them,  he opened  and closed the car doors, as if checking  the locks. He
moved the packages from the trunk to the back seat. His agility and youthful
strength  were the opposite of the old man's movements of a few minutes ago.
I knew that he was acting for the benefit of the policeman who had seen  him
before. If  I had  been that man, there would have  been no doubt in my mind
that I was now seeing the son of the old braindamaged Indian.
     Don  Juan gave them the  name of  the  restaurant where  they knew  his
father and then bribed them shamelessly.
     I did not bother to say anything to the  policemen. There was something
that made me feel hard, cold, efficient, silent.
     We got  in the car without a word. The policemen did not attempt to ask
me anything. They seemed too tired even to try. We drove away.
     "What kind of act did you  pull out  there, don Juan?" I asked, and the
coldness in my tone surprised me.
     "It was the first lesson in ruthlessness," he said.
     He remarked  that  on  our  way to  Guaymas he had  warned me about the
impending lesson on ruthlessness.
     I confessed that I had not paid attention because I had thought that we
were just making conversation to break the monotony of driving.
     "I never  just make  conversation," he said  sternly. "You  should know
that by now. What  I did this afternoon was to  create the  proper situation
for  you  to  move  your assemblage  point  to  the precise spot  where pity
disappears. That spot is known as the  place  of no pity. "The problem  that
sorcerers have to solve," he went on, is that the place of no pity has to be
reached with  only minimal help. The  nagual sets  the scene,  but it is the
apprentice who makes his  assemblage point move. "Today you just did that. I
helped you, perhaps a bit dramatically, by moving my own assemblage point to
specific position that made me into  a  feeble and  unpredictable old man. I
was not just acting old and feeble. I was old"
     The mischievous  glint  in his eyes told  me that  he was  enjoying the
moment.
     "It was not absolutely necessary that I do that,"  he went i.  "I could
have directed  you  to move your assemblage point  without the hard tactics,
but I couldn't help myself, nee  this event will never be repeated, I wanted
to know whether or not I could act, in some measure, like my own :enefactor.
Believe me, I surprised myself as much as I must have surprised you."
     I felt incredibly  at ease. I had  no  problems in accepting hat he was
saying  to me, and no questions,  because  I  understood  everything without
needing him to  explain.  He then said something which  I  already knew, but
could  )t  verbalize,  because  I  would  not  have been able  to  find  the
appropriate words to describe  it. He said that every-ling sorcerers did was
done  as a  consequence of  a movement  of their assemblage points, and that
such  movements ere ruled  by  the amount of energy sorcerers  had at  their
command.
     I  mentioned to  don Juan that I  knew  all that and much more.  And he
commented that inside every human being was a gigantic, dark lake  of silent
knowledge  which each of  us  could intuit. He  told me  I could  intuit  it
perhaps  with  a  bit more  clarity  than  the  average  man  because  of my
involvement in the warrior's path. He then said that sorcerers were the only
beings on earth who deliberately went beyond the intuitive level by training
themselves to do two transcendental things: first, to conceive the existence
of the assemblage point, and second, to make that assemblage point move.
     He emphasized  over and  over  that the  most  sophisticated  knowledge
sorcerers  possessed was  of our potential  as perceiving  beings,  and  the
knowledge  that the  content of perception  depended  on the position of the
assemblage point.
     At  that   point  I  began   to  experience  a  unique   difficulty  in
concentrating  on  what  he  was saying, not  because  I was  distracted  or
fatigued, but because  my mind, on its own,  had started to play the game of
anticipating his words.  It was as if an unknown part of myself  were inside
me,  trying unsuccessfully to find adequate words to voice a thought. As don
Juan spoke, I  felt I  could anticipate how he was  going to express  my own
silent  thoughts. I was thrilled to realize his choice  of words was  always
better than mine could have been. But anticipating his words also diminished
my concentration.
     I abruptly  pulled over to the side of the road. And right there I had,
for  the first time in  my life, a clear knowledge of a dualism  in  me. Two
obviously separate  parts were  within my  being. One was extremely old,  at
ease, indifferent. It  was heavy, dark, and connected to everything else. It
was the part of me  that did not care, because it was equal  to anything. It
enjoyed things with no expectation.  The  other part was light, new, fluffy,
agitated.  It  was  nervous, fast. It cared  about  itself  because  it  was
insecure and did not enjoy anything, simply because it lacked  the  capacity
to connect  itself  to anything.  It  was alone, on the surface, vulnerable.
That was the part with which I looked at the world.
     I deliberately looked around  with that part. Everywhere I looked I saw
extensive  farmlands.  And that insecure, fluffy, and  caring part of me got
caught between being proud of the  industriousness of man and  being sad  at
the sight of the magnificent old Sonoran desert turned into an orderly scene
of furrows and domesticated plants.
     The old, dark, heavy part of me did not care. And the two parts entered
into a debate. The fluffy part  wanted the heavy part to care, and the heavy
part wanted the other one to stop fretting, and to enjoy.
     "Why did you stop?" don Juan asked.
     His  voice produced a reaction, but it would be  inaccurate to say that
it was I who reacted. The  sound of his voice seemed to solidify the  fluffy
part, and suddenly I was recognizably myself.
     I described to don Juan the realization I had just had bout my dualism.
As he began to explain it in terms of the position of the assemblage point I
lost  my solidity.  The fluffy part became  as fluffy as it  had been when I
first  noticed  my  dualism, and  once  again  I  knew  what  don  Juan  vas
explaining.
     He said that when  the assemblage point moves and reaches the place  of
no  pity,  the position  of  rationality and common sense becomes  weak. The
sensation  I was having  if an  older, dark, silent side was  a  view of the
antecedents of reason.
     "I  know exactly what  you are saying,"  I  told him. "I  know a  great
number of things, but  I can't  speak of what I  know.  I don't know  how to
begin."
     "I have  mentioned  this  to  you  already,"  he  said. "What  you  are
experiencing  and  call dualism is a  view  from  another position  of  your
assemblage point.  From that position, you can  feel the older side  of man.
And what the older side of  man knows  is  called  silent knowledge.  It's a
knowledge that you cannot yet voice."
     "Why not?" I asked.
     "Because in order to voice it, it  is necessary for you to have and use
an  inordinate amount of energy," he replied. "You  don't at this  time have
that kind of energy to spare.
     "Silent knowledge is  something  that  all  of us  have,"  he went  on.
"Something that  has complete mastery, complete knowledge of everything. But
it cannot think, therefore, it cannot speak of what it knows.
     "Sorcerers believe that when man became aware that he knew,  and wanted
to be conscious of what he knew, he lost sight of what he knew. This  silent
knowledge, which you cannot describe,  is, of course, intent  -  the spirit,
the abstract. Man's error was to want to know it  directly, the way he  knew
everyday life. The more he wanted, the more ephemeral it became."
     "But what does that mean in plain words, don Juan?" I asked.
     "It means that man gave up silent  knowledge for the world of  reason,"
he replied. "The  more he clings to the world of  reason, the more ephemeral
intent becomes."
     I started the car and we drove in silence. Don Juan did not attempt  to
give me directions  or tell me how to drive - a thing he often  did in order
to exacerbate my self-importance. I had no clear idea where I was going, yet
something in me knew. I let that part take over.
     Very late in the  evening we arrived at the big house don Juan's  group
of  sorcerers had  in a rural area of the state of Sinaloa  in  northwestern
Mexico.  The journey  seemed  to have  taken no  time  at all.  I could  not
remember the particulars of our drive. All I knew about it was that  we  had
not talked.
     The house seemed  to be  empty. There  were no  signs  of people living
there. I knew, however, that don Juan's  friends were in the house. I  could
feel their presence without actually having to see them.
     Don Juan  lit some kerosene lanterns and we sat down at a sturdy table.
It  seemed that don Juan was getting ready to  eat. I was wondering what  to
say or do  when a woman entered noiselessly and put a large plate of food on
the table. I  was not prepared for her entrance, and when she stepped out of
the darkness  into the light, as if she had materialized  out of nowhere,  I
gasped involuntarily.
     "Don't  be  scared,  it's  me,  Carmela,"  she  said  and  disappeared,
swallowed again by the darkness.
     I was  left with my mouth open in mid-scream. Don  Juan laughed so hard
that I knew everybody in the house must have heard him. I half expected them
to come, but no one appeared.
     I tried to eat, but I was not hungry. I began to think about the woman.
I did not know her.  That is, I  could almost identify her, but I  could not
quite work  my memory  of her out of  the fog that obscured  my thoughts.  I
struggled to clear  my mind. I  felt that it  required too much energy and I
gave up.
     Almost as  soon  as  I had  stopped  thinking  about her,  I  began  to
experience a strange,  numbing anxiety. At  first I  believed that the dark,
massive  house, and the silence in and around it, were depressing. But  then
my anguish  rose to incredible proportions,  right after I heard  the  faint
barking of dogs in the distance.  For  a moment I thought that  my body  was
going  to  explode. Don Juan  intervened quickly. He jumped  to  where I was
sitting and pushed my back until it cracked. The pressure on my back brought
me immediate relief.
     When  I  had calmed  down,  I realized  I had lost, together  with  the
anxiety that had nearly consumed  me, the clear sense of knowing everything.
I could no longer  anticipate how don Juan  was going  to articulate  what I
myself knew.
     Don Juan then  started a most peculiar explanation.  First he said that
the origin of the anxiety that had overtaken  me with the speed of  wildfire
was the  sudden movement  of my assemblage point, caused by Carmela's sudden
appearance, and by my unavoidable effort to move my assemblage  point to the
place where I would be able to identify her completely.
     He advised me to get used to the idea of recurrent attacks  of the same
type of anxiety, because my assemblage point was going to keep moving.
     "Any  movement  of  the  assemblage  point  is like  dying,"  he  said.
"Everything in  us gets disconnected, then reconnected again to a source  of
much greater power.  That amplification  of  energy is  felt  as  a  killing
anxiety."
     "What am I to do when this happens?" I asked.
     "Nothing,"  he  said.  "Just  wait.  The outburst of  energy will pass.
What's dangerous  is not knowing what is happening to  you.  Once you  know,
there is no real danger."
     Then he talked about ancient man. He said that ancient man knew, in the
most  direct  fashion, what  to do and how  best to  do  it. But, because he
performed so well, he started to develop a sense of selfness, which gave him
the  feeling that he  could  predict  and plan  the actions he was  used  to
performing. And thus the idea of an individual "self appeared; an individual
self which began to dictate the nature and scope of man's actions.
     As the  feeling of the  individual  self became stronger,  man lost his
natural connection  to  silent knowledge. Modern  man, being  heir  to  that
development, therefore finds himself so  hopelessly removed from the  source
of everything that  all  he can  do  is express  his  despair in violent and
cynical  acts of  self-destruction.  Don  Juan asserted that the reason  for
man's cynicism and despair is the bit of silent knowledge left in him, which
does two things: one, it gives man an inkling of  his  ancient connection to
the source  of everything;  and  two, it makes  man  feel that  without this
connection, he has no hope of peace, of satisfaction, of attainment.
     I  thought I had caught don  Juan  in a contradiction. I pointed out to
him that  he  had once told me that war was he natural  state for a warrior,
that peace was an anomaly.
     "That's right," he admitted. "But war, for a warrior, doesn't mean acts
of  individual or  collective  stupidity or  wanton  violence.  War,  for  a
warrior,  is  the  total struggle  against  that individual  self  that  has
deprived man of his power."
     Don Juan  said then  that it was time  for us  to  talk  further  about
ruthlessness  - the  most  basic  premise  of  sorcery.  He  explained  that
sorcerers had discovered that any  movement )f the assemblage  point meant a
movement away from the excessive concern with that individual self which was
the nark of modern man. He went on to say that sorcerers relieved it was the
position of the assemblage point which made modern  man a homicidal egotist,
a  being  totally  involved with his  self-image.  Having lost hope of  ever
returning to the source of  everything, man sought  solace in  his selfness.
And, in  doing so, he succeeded in fixing his assemblage point in  the exact
position to perpetuate his self-mage. It  was therefore safe to say that any
movement of :he assemblage point  away from its  customary position resulted
in  a  movement  away  from  man's  self-reflection  and   its  concomitant:
self-importance.
     Don Juan described  self-importance as the  force  generated  by  man's
self-image.  He  reiterated that it is that force which keeps the assemblage
point fixed  where it  is  at  present. For this  reason, the thrust  of the
warriors' way is to dethrone self-importance. And everything sorcerers do is
toward accomplishing this goal.
     He explained that sorcerers had unmasked self-importance and found that
it is self-pity masquerading as something else.
     "It  doesn't  sound  possible,  but that  is  what  it  is,"  he  said.
"Self-pity  is the  real enemy and  the  source of man's  misery.  Without a
degree of pity for himself, man could not afford to be  as self-important as
he  is.  However, once  the force of self-importance is engaged, it develops
its  own   momentum.  And  it  is  this  seemingly   independent  nature  of
self-importance which gives it its fake sense of worth."
     His explanation, which I would have found incomprehensible under normal
conditions, seemed thoroughly cogent to me. But  because of  the duality  in
me, which still pertained, it appeared a bit simplistic. Don  Juan seemed to
have aimed his thoughts and  words at a specific target. And I, in my normal
state of awareness, was that target.
     He continued  his  explanation, saying  that sorcerers  are  absolutely
convinced that  by moving our  assemblage points  away from  their customary
position  we  achieve   a  state  of   being  which  could  only  be  called
ruthlessness. Sorcerers knew, by  means of their practical actions, that  as
soon  as  their  assemblage  points  move,  their  self-importance crumbles.
Without the customary  position of their assemblage points, their self-image
can no longer be sustained. And without the heavy focus on that  self-image,
they  lose  their   self-compassion,  and  with  it  their  self-importance.
Sorcerers are right, therefore,  in saying  that  self-importance is  merely
self-pity in disguise.
     He then took my experience of the afternoon and went through it step by
step. He stated that a nagual in his role leader or teacher has to behave in
the most  efficient, but the same time most impeccable, way. Since it is not
possible  for him to  plan the course of his actions  rationally,  :  nagual
always  lets the spirit decide his course. For ex-pie, he said he had had no
plans to do what he did until :  spirit gave him  an  indication, very early
that morning die we were having breakfast in Nogales. He urged me recall the
event and tell him what I could remember. I recalled that during breakfast I
got very embarrassed  cause  don Juan made  fun  of  me.  "Think  about  the
waitress," don Juan urged  me. "All I can remember about her is that she was
rude." "But what did she do?" he insisted. "What did she do while she waited
to take  our order?" After  a  moment's pause, I  remembered that she was  a
hard-looking  young woman who threw the menu at me  and  stood there, almost
touching me, silently demanding that I hurry up and order.
     While she  waited,  impatiently  tapping  her big foot on e floor,  she
pinned her long black  hair  up on  her head. The change was remarkable. She
looked more  appealing, more mature.  I was frankly taken by  the change  in
her.  In fact, I overlooked  her  bad  manners because  of it. "That was the
omen," don  Juan  said. "Hardness and transformation were the indication  of
the spirit." He said that his first act of the day, as a nagual, was to t me
know his intentions. To that end, he  told me in very plain language, but in
a  surreptitious  manner,  that  he  was  going  to  give  me  a  lesson  in
ruthlessness. "Do you remember now?" he asked. "I talked to the waitress and
to an  old lady at  the next table." Guided by him  in  this fashion,  I did
remember don Juan practically flirting with an old lady and the ill-mannered
waitress.  He  talked to  them  for a  long time  while I ate. He  told them
idiotically funny  stories about graft  and  corruption in  government,  and
jokes  about farmers  in the city. Then he asked the waitress if she  was an
American. She said no and laughed  at the question. Don Juan  said that that
was good, because I was a Mexican-American in search of love. And I might as
well start here, after eating such a good breakfast.
     The women laughed. I thought they laughed at my being embarrassed.  Don
Juan said to them that, seriously speaking, I had  come to  Mexico to find a
wife. He asked if  they knew of any honest, modest, chaste woman who  wanted
to  get married  and  was not too demanding  in  matters of male  beauty. He
referred to himself as my spokesman.
     The women were laughing very  hard.  I  was  truly  chagrined. Don Juan
turned  to the waitress and asked her  if  she would marry me. She said that
she  was  engaged.  It  looked to  me  as  though  she was taking  don  Juan
seriously.
     "Why don't you let him speak for himself?" the old lady asked don Juan.
     "Because he has a speech impediment," he said. "He stutters horribly."
     The waitress said  that I had been perfectly normal  when I  ordered my
food.
     "Oh! You're so observant," don Juan said. "Only when he orders food can
he speak like anyone  else. I've told  him time  and  time  again that if he
wants to learn to speak normally, he has to  be ruthless. I brought him here
to give him some lessons in ruthlessness."
     "Poor man," the old woman said.
     "Well,  we'd  better  get  going if we are going  to find love  for him
today," don Juan said as he stood to leave.
     You're serious about this  marriage business," the young waitress  said
to don Juan.
     You  bet," he replied. "I'm going to help him  get  what he needs so he
can cross the border and go to the place of no pity."
     I thought don Juan was  calling either marriage or the U.S.A. the place
of no pity. I laughed at  the metaphor and  stuttered horribly for a moment,
which scared the women to death and made don Juan laugh hysterically. It was
imperative that I state my purpose to you then,"  Juan  said, continuing his
explanation. "I did, but it bypassed  you completely, as it should have." He
said that  from the moment  the  spirit manifested  itself,  every step  was
carried to its satisfactory completion with absolute ease. And my assemblage
point  reached  the  place  of  no  pity,  when,  under  the  stress  of his
transformation,   it   was   forced  to  abandon  its  customary  place   of
self-reflection.
     "The  position  of  self-reflection,"  don  Juan went on,  "forces  the
assemblage  point  to assemble a world  of sham compassion, but of very real
cruelty  and self-centeredness.  In that world  the  only real feelings  are
those convenient  for one  who feels them. 'For a  sorcerer, ruthlessness is
not cruelty.  Ruthlessness the  opposite  of self-pity  or  self-importance.
Ruthlessness sobriety."

     THE REQUIREMENTS OF INTENT

     Breaking The Mirror Of Self-Reflection

     We  spent a night at the spot where I had recollected  my experience in
Guaymas. During that night,  because my  assemblage  point was  pliable, don
Juan  helped  me to  reach new positions,  which immediately  became  blurry
non-memories.
     The next day I was incapable of remembering what had happened or what I
had perceived; I had, nonetheless, the acute sensation of having had bizarre
experiences. Don Juan  agreed that my assemblage  point had moved beyond his
expectations, yet he refused to give me  even a hint of what I had done. His
only comment had been that some day I would recollect everything.
     Around noon, we continued on up the mountains. We walked in silence and
without stopping until late in the afternoon. As we slowly climbed  a mildly
steep mountain ridge, don Juan suddenly spoke.  I did not understand  any of
what  he was saying. He repeated it until I realized he wanted  to stop on a
wide  ledge, visible from where we were.  He was telling me that we would be
protected there from the wind by the boulders and large, bushy shrubs.
     "Tell me, which spot on  the ledge  would  be the best for s to sit out
all night?" he asked.
     Earlier, as  we were climbing,  I  had spotted the almost  unnoticeable
ledge. It appeared as a patch of darkness on the face of the mountain. I had
identified it with a very quick  glance.  Now that don  Juan  was  asking my
opinion, I elected a  spot of even greater darkness, one almost black, n the
south side of the ledge. The  dark ledge and the almost black spot in it did
not generate any feeling of fear r anxiety. I felt that  I liked that ledge.
And I liked its dark pot even more.
     "That spot there is very dark,  but I like it," I said, when /e reached
the ledge.
     He agreed that that was the  best place to sit all night. He aid it was
a place with a special level of energy, and that he, too, liked its pleasing
darkness.
     We headed toward some protruding rocks. Don Juan cleared an area by the
boulders and we sat with our backs against them.
     I  told him that on the one hand I thought it had been a lucky guess on
my part to choose that very spot, but  on the other I could not overlook the
fact that I had perceived it with my eyes.
     "I wouldn't say that you perceived it  exclusively with your eyes,"  he
said. "It was a bit more complex than that."
     "What do you mean by that, don Juan?" I asked.
     "I mean  that you have  possibilities  you are  not  yet aware of,"  he
replied.  "Since you're quite careless, you may  think that all  of what you
perceive is simply average sensory perception."
     He said that if I doubted him, he dared me to go down o the base of the
mountain again  and  corroborate  what he was saying.  He  predicted that it
would be impossible for me to see the dark ledge merely by looking at it.
     I stated vehemently that I had no reason to  doubt him. I was not going
to climb down that mountain.
     He insisted that we climb down. I thought he was doing it just to tease
me. I got  nervous, though, when it occurred to me that he might be serious.
He laughed so hard he choked.
     He  commented  on the fact  that all animals  could  detect,  in  their
surroundings,  areas  with  special  levels  of energy.  Most  animals  were
frightened  of these spots  and avoided them.  The exceptions  were mountain
lions  and coyotes,  which  lay and even slept  on such  spots whenever they
happened upon  them.  But, only sorcerers deliberately sought such spots for
their effects.
     I  asked  him  what  the  effects  were.  He  said  that they  gave out
imperceptible jolts of invigorating energy, and he remarked that average men
living in natural  settings could find such spots, even though they were not
conscious about having found them nor aware of their effects.
     "How do they know they have found them?" I asked.
     "They  never do,"  he replied. "Sorcerers  watching men travel on  foot
trails notice  right away that men always become tired and rest right on the
spot  with a positive level of energy. If, on the other hand, they are going
through an area  with an injurious flow of  energy, they  become nervous and
rush. If you ask  them about it they will tell you they rushed  through that
area because they felt energized.  But it is  the opposite  - the only place
that energizes them is the place where they feel tired."
     He said that sorcerers  are capable of finding such spots by perceiving
with their entire bodies minute surges of energy in their surroundings.  The
sorcerers'   increased  energy,  derived   from  the  curtailment  of  their
self-reflection, allows their senses a greater range of perception.
     "I've been trying to make clear to you that the  only worthwhile course
of action,  whether  for  sorcerers  or  average  men, is  to  restrict  our
involvement with our self-image," he continued. "What  a nagual aims at with
his apprentices is the shattering of their mirror of self-reflection."
     He  added that each  apprentice  was  an individual case, and that  the
nagual had to let the spirit decide about the
     particulars.
     "Each   of   us  has  a   different  degree   of   attachment   to  his
self-reflection,"  he  went on.  "And that attachment is  felt as  need. For
example, before  I  started on the path of knowledge,  my  life was  endless
need. And years after the  nagual Julian had taken me under his  wing, I was
still just as needy, if not more so.
     "But there  are  examples of people, sorcerers or average men, who need
no one. They  get  peace, harmony, laughter, knowledge,  directly  from  the
spirit. They need no intermediaries. For you and for me, it's different. I'm
your  intermediary and the  nagual Julian was  mine. Intermediaries, besides
providing a minimal chance - the awareness of intent - help shatter people's
mirrors of self-reflection.
     "The only  concrete help you  ever get  from me is that  I attack  your
self-reflection.  If  it  weren't for  that, you would be wasting your time.
This is the only real help you've gotten from me."
     "You've taught  me, don Juan, more than  anyone in  my  entire life," I
protested.
     "I've taught you all kinds of things in order to  trap your attention,"
he said. "You'll swear, though, that that  teaching  has been the  important
part.  It  hasn't.  There  is very  little value  in instruction.  Sorcerers
maintain  that  moving the  assemblage point is  all that matters.  And that
movement,  as  you  well  know, depends  on  increased  energy  and  not  on
instruction."
     He then made an incongruous statement. He said that any human being who
would follow a specific and simple sequence of actions can learn to move his
assemblage point.
     I pointed out that  he was  contradicting himself. To me, a sequence of
actions meant instructions; it meant procedures.
     "In the sorcerers'  world  there are only contradictions of  terms," he
replied. "In practice there are no contradictions. The sequence of actions I
am talking about is one that stems from being aware. To become aware of this
sequence you need a nagual. This is why I've said that the nagual provides a
minimal  chance,  but  that minimal  chance  is not  instruction,  like  the
instruction  you need to  learn  to operate  a  machine.  The minimal chance
consists of being made aware of the spirit."
     He explained that the specific sequence he had in mind called for being
aware that self-importance is  the force which keeps  the  assemblage  point
fixed.  When self-importance is  curtailed, the  energy  it requires  is  no
longer expended. That increased energy then  serves as  the springboard that
launches the assemblage point, automatically and without premeditation, into
an inconceivable journey.
     Once the assemblage point has moved, the movement itself entails moving
from  self-reflection,  and this, in  turn, assures a clear  connecting link
with the spirit.  He commented that,  after all, it was self-reflection that
had disconnected man from the spirit in the first place.
     "As  I have already said to  you,"  don  Juan went  on,  "sorcery is  a
journey of return. We return victorious to the spirit, having descended into
hell.  And  from  hell we  bring  trophies.  Understanding  is  one  of  our
trophies."
     I told him  that his sequence seemed very  easy and very simple when he
talked about it, but that when I had tried
     to put it into practice I had found it the total antithesis of ease and
simplicity.
     "Our  difficulty with this  simple progression," he said, "is that most
of us are unwilling  to accept that we need so little to get on with. We are
geared  to expect  instruction, teaching, guides, masters.  And when  we are
told  that we need  no  one, we  don't  believe  it. We become nervous, then
distrustful, and finally angry and disappointed.  If we need help, it is not
in  methods, but  in  emphasis. If  someone makes us  aware that we  need to
curtail our self-importance, that help is real.
     "Sorcerers say we should need no  one to  convince us that the world is
infinitely  more  complex  than  our  wildest  fantasies.  So,  why  are  we
dependent? Why do we crave  someone to guide us when we can do it ourselves?
Big question, eh?"
     Don Juan did not say anything  else. Obviously, he  wanted me to ponder
the  question.  But I had  other worries in  my  mind.  My  recollection had
undermined  certain  foundations that  I  had  believed  unshakable,  and  I
desperately needed him to redefine them. I broke the long silence and voiced
my concern. I told him that I had come to accept that it was possible for me
to forget whole incidents, from beginning to end, if they had taken place in
heightened awareness. Up to that day  I had had  total  recall of anything I
had done under his guidance in my state of normal awareness. Yet, having had
breakfast with  him in Nogales  had not  existed in  my  mind  prior  to  my
recollecting it. And that event simply must have taken place in the world of
everyday affairs.
     "You  are  forgetting something  essential,"  he  said.  "The  nagual's
presence  is enough to move the  assemblage  point.  I have humored you  all
along with the nagual's blow.  The blow between the  shoulder  blades that I
have delivered is
     only  a  pacifier. It  serves  the  purpose  of  removing your  doubts.
Sorcerers use physical contact as a jolt to the body. It doesn't do anything
but give confidence to the apprentice who is being manipulated."
     "Then who moves the assemblage point, don Juan?" I asked.
     "The spirit does it,"  he replied in the  tone of someone about to lose
his patience.
     He seemed to check himself and smiled and shook his head  from side  to
side in a gesture of resignation.
     "It's  hard  for  me to  accept,"  I  said.  "My mind  is  ruled by the
principle of cause and effect."
     He had one of his usual attacks of inexplicable laughter - inexplicable
from my point of view, of course.  I must  have looked annoyed.  He  put his
hand on my shoulder.
     "I  laugh like this periodically  because  you  are demented," he said.
"The answer to everything you ask me is staring  you  right in the  eyes and
you don't see it. I think dementia is your curse."
     His eyes were  so shiny, so utterly crazy and mischievous, that I ended
up laughing myself.
     "I  have  insisted  to the  point  of  exhaustion  that  there  are  no
procedures in sorcery," he went  on. "There  are no methods,  no steps.  The
only  thing that matters  is the movement  of  the  assemblage point. And no
procedure can cause that. It's an effect that happens all by itself."
     He pushed me as if  to  straighten my shoulders, and then he  peered at
me, looking right into my eyes. My attention became riveted to his words.
     "Let us see  how you figure this out,"  he said. "I have just said that
the movement of the assemblage point happens by itself. But I have also said
that the nagual's presence moves his apprentice's  assemblage point and that
the way the  nagual  masks his  ruthlessness either  helps  or hinders  that
movement. How would you resolve this contradiction?"
     I  confessed  that  I  had  been  just  about  to  ask  him  about  the
contradiction,  for I had been aware of it,  but that I could not even begin
to think of resolving it. I was not a sorcery practitioner.
     "What are you, then?" he asked.
     "I am a  student  of  anthropology, trying to figure out what sorcerers
do," I said.
     My statement was not altogether true, but it was not a lie.
     Don Juan laughed uncontrollably
     "It's too late for  that," he said.  "Your  assemblage point  has moved
already. And it is precisely that movement that makes one a sorcerer."
     He stated that what seemed a contradiction  was really the two sides of
the same  coin. The nagual  entices  the  assemblage point  into  moving  by
helping to destroy the mirror of self-reflection. But that is all the nagual
can do.  The actual mover is the spirit, the abstract; something that cannot
be  seen or felt; something that does not  seem  to exist, and yet does. For
this reason, sorcerers report that the assemblage point moves all by itself.
Or they say  that the  nagual moves it. The nagual, being the conduit of the
abstract, is allowed to express it through his actions.
     I looked at don Juan questioningly.
     "The nagual moves the  assemblage point, and yet it  is not  he himself
who  does the actual moving," don  Juan said. "Or  perhaps it would be  more
appropriate to say that the  spirit expresses itself  in accordance with the
nagual's  impeccability. The  spirit can move the  assemblage point with the
mere presence of an impeccable nagual."
     He  said that he had wanted  to clarify this point,  because, if it was
misunderstood,  it led a  nagual  back to  self-importance  and thus to  his
destruction.
     He changed  the  subject and  said that,  because  the  spirit  had  no
perceivable essence, sorcerers  deal  rather with the specific instances and
ways in which they are able to shatter the mirror of self-reflection.
     Don  Juan  noted that  in  this area it was  important  to  realize the
practical  value of  the different ways in which the  naguals  masked  their
ruthlessness. He said my  mask of generosity, for example, was adequate  for
dealing  with people on  a shallow  level, but useless  for shattering their
self-reflection because it forced me to demand an almost impossible decision
on their part. I expected them to jump into the sorcerers' world without any
preparation.
     "A decision such  as that jump must be prepared for," he  went on. "And
in  order  to prepare for it, any  kind of mask for a  nagual's ruthlessness
will do, except the mask of generosity."
     Perhaps  because I  desperately  wanted to believe  that  I  was  truly
generous, his comments on my behavior renewed my terrible sense of guilt. He
assured  me  that  I had  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of,  and  that the  only
undesirable effect was that my pseudo-gener